“Foolish people deny the existence of the soul, but it is a fact that when we sleep we forget the identity of the material body and when we awake we forget the identity of the subtle body. In other words, while sleeping we forget the activities of the gross body, and when active in the gross body we forget the activities of sleeping.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Shrimad Bhagavatam, 4.29.71 Purport)

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After a while, you come to expect it. They place your beliefs in the category of mysticism. Perhaps even mythology, where they deride you for bowing down in front of gods who are false. You created idols, after all, and that is strictly prohibited in the local area. Of course, these are nothing like the idols already subtly worshiped, in the form of attendance at live events, purchase of merchandising, and participation in fervent online debates. You are not bowing down to dutifully collect the waste left by an animal or keeping that same animal within your home, sharing the same bed and licking unclean places.

Rather, you are worshiping in a longstanding tradition. This specific belief, as someone else might call it, seems more like science to you. It explains a basic difference. It explains something that makes sense in the logical progression. In other words, you can actually make a test out of the belief, which is really a principle. You can record the results to that test and then reach your own conclusion. The supposed false gods are the ones who revealed the principle to you, in the first place.

The belief in question is reincarnation. I have lived before. I have lived somewhere else, prior to the time listed on my certificate of birth. I may have even been in a different species. You see that fish fetched from the stream? You see that bird resting on the branch of the tree? You see that lion dominating the jungle? That could have been me, in the past. That could be me, in the future. It is a living being, after all. There is life. When there is life, there is identity. That life is someone, even though it cannot speak for itself at the moment.

You mention this principle to someone who is not familiar with the science and they might accuse you of being crazy. They offer the following objection:

“Wait a second. You think animals are the same as humans? They identify as soul? I don’t know. That sounds a little off, to me. I think they have a different kind of soul. They are an animal soul. We are a human soul. Yeah, that’s it. You see, we will never be an animal and they will never be a human.”

In response, you explain that the basic distinction is always between spirit and matter. There is the inside and there is the outside. The outside is always changing. The outside never stays the same. The outside can thus never identify the individual. It does not necessarily matter what that outside looks like. It is like the saying, “The clothes do not make the man.”

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरो ऽपराणि
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्य्
अन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही

vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
navāni gṛhṇāti naro ‘parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.22)

You explain that the individual already flows through visible and acknowledged changes. From boyhood to youth. From youth to old age. From the fetus to the infant. There can never be birth without the prior phase. There can never be old age without youth. The individual retains the same identity. This is the concept of reincarnation, playing out on the external field. The individual inside is always the knower. That is how we can tell they are different. The knower is distinct from the field. The knower has the power of perception.

श्रीभगवानुवाच
इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते
एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहु: क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विद:

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
idaṁ śarīraṁ kaunteya
kṣetram ity abhidhīyate
etad yo vetti taṁ prāhuḥ
kṣetra-jña iti tad-vidaḥ

“The Blessed Lord then said: This body, O son of Kunti, is called the field, and one who knows this body is called the knower of the field.” (Bhagavad-gita, 13.2)

To this end, the skeptic repeats their denial. They claim that the changing body of the human being is not evidence of reincarnation. They insist that there is no proof of the distinction between body and spirit, in the manner described in sacred texts such as Bhagavad-gita. They want proof that someone has lived before. They want evidence that someone can live again.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada highlights the known reality of forgetfulness. That lack of remembrance does not automatically invalidate a particular state of being. When a person is sleeping, they forget their body entirely. It is almost like they become a different person. They are completely detached from the form in which they inhabit. When they wake up, they completely forget about where they were before.

This constant toggling of states is itself a kind of reincarnation. We see that the identity remains. There is a factor steady throughout the shifts. If the factor disintegrated, then maybe the skeptics would be on to something. The fact that the individual remains who they are, despite completely changing states, means that the body does not identify them. The body will never identify them. They can appear in any type of body and their identity will remain the same.

The authentic spiritual science teaches this principle at the very beginning. The ultimate objective is to stop the toggling. End rebirth, altogether. Live in such a way that there is no further development of a temporary body. That state is elevation. That state is above the dualities of knowledge and ignorance. That state can be achieved easily, in almost a second, if knowing the transcendental nature to two distinct features of one specific person.

जन्म कर्म च मे दिव्यम्
एवं यो वेत्ति तत्त्वतः
त्यक्त्वा देहं पुनर् जन्म
नैति माम् एति सो ऽर्जुन

janma karma ca me divyam
evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna

“One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 4.9)

In Closing:

Foolishly the fight to pick,
To just two principles stick.

About the greatest one to know,
How even when vision to show.

With birth from the womb appearing,
And activities saintly people cheering.

That divine in nature considered,
By this acknowledgment delivered.

Categories: reincarnation

Tags: dailyprompt, hare krishna, life, poem, poems, poetry, reincarnation